THE SPICE MERCHANT

Yusuf Çelebi thought he sold cardamom. For twenty years his warehouses in the Grand Bazaar have been the quiet backbone of an Ottoman trade empire built by his father. When a broken crate spills scimitars instead of nutmeg, Yusuf follows the thread upward and discovers his cargo has been arming a Janissary faction loyal to a pretender. The Janissary plot is a cover for a Byzantine conspiracy, and the Byzantine conspiracy is a cover for something older. The bloodline the final conspirators want dead is his own, and he is the last one who does not know it.